


The Dark Lord

by Aldebarana



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: 1940s, BAMF Hermione Granger, Classes, Dark Magic, Dueling, F/M, Hogwarts, Horcruxes, Knights of Walpurgis, M/M, Slytherins, Time Travel, Tomione – Freeform, War, Young Dark Lord, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 12:42:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20966750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aldebarana/pseuds/Aldebarana
Summary: A broken time turner can still work.This is what Hermione Granger finds out in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, and it is in the worst possible, completely accidental, kind of way.Now, fifty years in the past, she comes face to face with the most brilliant and charismatic student Hogwarts has ever seen, who will also, in time, show himself to be the most evil.A Thief. A Murderer. A Snake. A Riddle.He is the Dark Lord.*There was a loud shriek of pain, and suddenly Harry’s vision was filled with a blinding golden light. For a moment, he saw Hermione outlined against the brightness, wand clutched at her side and hand shielding her eyes from the glare.And then she was gone, vanished along with the light.





	The Dark Lord

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when your other fic spirals out of control and can no longer be salvaged.  
I took Candlelight, ripped it up, tossed it around and then sewed it up together along with what I wish I had written in the first place.  
Welp.  
You live and you learn.
> 
> In any case I will probably not be returning to that work, so please enjoy this other insanity-fueled Tomione.
> 
> This universe (which I do not own) belongs, of course, to  
J.K. Rowling and thus all credit goes to her. 
> 
> Happy reading! xx

Even for August, it is turning out to be a hot day. Pierre once declared that it was the fires of war, the war burning all across the world, that have turned France into a furnace, and for once no-one contradicted him. A rarity; inside his home, as well as out, the conflict never stops, although it has lessened now that both his sons are away at the front, fighting both alongside and against their countrymen. It is a small consolation that they at least bear the true colors of their country and not the white, black and scarlet of the Nazis that smother so much of France these days... Including his farm.

But for all the political upheaval, life is not so very different from before. Of course, there is rationing, though he knows that in other places it is felt much more strongly than here, where they can produce their own food, and sometimes a plane whines overhead in the dead of night waking him. News will come from another farm, that a bomb has landed in a field, or on an old barn, as was once the case. But apart from the empty seats at the dinner table, apart from the cracked ground and diminished crop caused by the scorching weather, life is the same as always.

The sky today is that curiously faded blue that comes with hot temperatures, devoid of any clouds and still slightly stained by the pale yellow of dawn. As is routine, he has hitched the horses to the cart and set off through the fields on his rounds, using the opportunity to painstakingly roll his cigarettes with his war-rationed tobacco. The harness jingles and the horses plod on, no steering required for the familiar route, and it is only when they reach the easternmost border of the farm that Pierre knows something is amiss.

Silence hangs on the air, thick and heavy, as if someone has decided to turn off the birdsong in the same way he switches off the radio late at night. The horses draw to a halt, and Oscar, the large, usually placid bay shifts nervously from foot to foot, ears flattened and eyes rolling. The field is empty, save for the crater that sits in the middle, stark against the fissured earth. The hole spans the length of a body, maybe more.

His footsteps gather dust as he stomps across the field, clumps of dirt and stone breaking apart under his boots. The sight of the corpse lying deep in the crater, limbs curled up under her as if in sleep, is enough to make him stumble in shock, a soundless cry on his lips.

*

When she wakes, her first thought is that she is sick, and that’s why she’s been allowed to stay home from school; any moment now, her mother will waltz in through the door, bringing honeyed lemon tea and her affectionate, tender smile. Her next is that that is ridiculous, because primary school is a fading memory, and that, besides, this place is definitely not home. Her head feels unbearably fuzzy, as if someone has replaced thoughts with cotton wool.

She does not remember much. Flashes of multi-colored light, and loud whizzes and bangs, a banshee laugh echoing down rows and rows of silent orbs, her own pounding heart as she runs from the Death-Eaters; it is too little to construct a real narrative but enough to leave her feeling disoriented and afraid. Who won? Who is still alive? She doesn’t know.

The room is completely unfamiliar to her, and strangely muggle; there is a small wash basin in the corner, complete with a tiny square mirror she can dimly see herself in; her hair today is monstrous. The ceiling hangs low, with thick wooden beams, and there is only one window through which the golden light of evening streams. Her bed has brass posts and floral covers that match the wallpaper. Beside it crouches a nightstand that supports a white pitcher, which she greedily gulps water from, and a vase, filled with some type of stringy wildflower. It is rustic and old-fashioned, comforting, exactly what she pictures when she thinks of a farmhouse; the fear that she has been captured by the enemy eases slightly, because what Death Eater would have such a room as this?

Hermione is hesitant at first to stand, because her body aches and twinges even as she pulls back the covers, but nonetheless, she gingerly sets one foot, then the other on the rough floorboards, steadying herself with her hands. An unfamiliar nightgown falls to her ankles, and for the first time she feels her wand’s absence. Panic flares up briefly in her chest and she stumbles to the door, which falls open at her touch, revealing a narrow corridor and a flight of descending stairs.

But before she can go any further a woman appears at the bottom of the steps, carrying a stack of towels. She looks up and freezes when she sees Hermione hovering in the doorway. They stare at each other, with the evaluating gaze of strangers, and then the unfamiliar woman hesitantly addresses her in a language that Hermione recognizes but does not expect.

_French. She is speaking French._

Mutely, Hermione shakes her head, desperately racking her brain for the phrases she learnt back on that holiday years ago in France.

‘_Je ne… Je ne parle pas français._’

The woman’s face pales, and Hermione notices her throat move, as if she is considering her next words carefully.

‘Eenglish?’ There is a pause, and then she nods. The woman goes very rigid, her eyes shut tight, and Hermione can her hear her shaky exhale even from a distance.

‘Where am I?’ she whispers, leaning against the wall to steady herself. The woman stays silent, and then abruptly puts down the stack of towels and hurries away, calling a name she does not recognize.

For a second, Hermione stands there, unsure of what to do, and then she is down the staircase and past the stack of towels, moving as fast as she can, because _this woman, and this house, are completely muggle, and this is NOT an Order safehouse._

Her eyes flick wildly over the kitchen, searching, hunting for her wand but it is not there. So she scrambles to the next room, and there, miraculously, is an exit, an open door.

If she cannot defend herself, she must escape, and find the rest of the Order, Harry, Dumbledore, anyone. But before she can go any further a man appears, wearing breeches and a cap, and _why is he dressed like something out of a period film, and why does he too stare at her with such uncertainty in his eyes._

Where is she?! Surely she cannot be alone? In echo of her thoughts she yells Harry’s, then Ron’s name but there is no answer. The man is advancing on her, his words coming in a steady stream of French that is slow and purposely reassuring, as if he is trying to appease some particularly nervous wild animal, but panic is choking the air from her lungs and she barely hears him. Don’t come near me, she thinks, she speaks, she warns, don’t come near me, but still the man comes closer.

_where is she where is she where is she where is she where_

Her chest rises and falls with empty breaths, the world is spinning and dipping like the carousels she used to ride on as a child, she is backed against the wall, unable to run, and dirt blackened hands reach towards, threatening to grab, to claw, to rip… Magic swells in her breast, threatening to spill out, to escape, and she can’t keep it in; it explodes outward, sending the man flying through the air like a rag doll. He slams into the wall, slides to the floor and does not get up. Her sobs fill the room, residual power crackling like static electricity in the air.

There is a sound like gunfire, or whip cracks, and the swish of robes and the clatter of shoes on wooden floor and foreign voices, and then a loud scream and a cry of something that sounds a lot like, but isn’t quite, _‘Obliviate!’_ accompanied by a bright flash of light visible even through her screwed-shut eyelids. And then she is being dragged to her feet, and she screams and she kicks because _surely this is the Death Eaters now, and surely they’ve come to kill her_, but when she opens her eyes she sees not the black cloaks and skull masks of Voldemort’s followers but collared slate-grey robes emblazoned with a pointy black emblem on the breast pocket. The woman from earlier stands in the doorway, an empty expression on her face.

She struggles even harder to break away from her captor’s grip, but receives a blow across the head for her efforts. One of the men barks something incomprehensible at her, and she knows instinctively, by his shorn head and authoritarian sneer, that he is their leader.

‘I don’t speak French,’ Hermione snarls, and she suddenly digs her elbow into her captor’s stomach. He drops her with a loud ‘oomph’ of surprise, but her vicious sense of satisfaction is cut short by the sight of a half-dozen wands pointing straight at her. She distinctly hears the word ‘_sauvage_’, and there is mocking laughter and jeering.

Smirking, the leader announces something that has the other men visibly snap to attention, and she is suddenly worried. Without any further warning, though, he has grabbed her by the arm, and suddenly twists her away into unbearable pressure that can be nothing but Disapparation.

*

As soon as they land, they are off again, down a winding maze of gleaming wooden floors and golden lamps, though she thinks she might be sick from her first Apparation. The few people they meet trip over themselves in their haste to get out of their way when they see exactly who it is dragging the kicking, scratching, wild-haired girl.

Hermione desperately tries to find some clues as to their location; they are in some type of big, wizard-run building, that much is obvious by the garb and attitude of the few workers they meet, although it is old-fashioned even by the outdated standards of the magical world. Occasionally, they pass a painting whose occupant glares at her with obvious disapproval, and once or twice an owl flies over their heads. From the rare window, she catches glimpses of a cityscape illuminated by the bloody light of the setting sun, but none of the structures are recognizable. The further they twist and turn through the increasingly gloomy corridors, the rarer both the windows and the people become, until finally they have been walking alone for several minutes, somewhere deep in the bowels of the building.

At one point, the man waves his wand and out of it bursts a silver vulture; immediately it swoops away, presumably to deliver a message in a manner Hermione has only ever read of. She wonders if she could send her otter to find help, wherever help is.

Acidic panic churns in her stomach when they finally come to a stop in front of a glass door; never has Hermione felt so vulnerable as she does in this moment, alone, deprived of her wand, stranded in a strange country with a strange language and wearing nothing but a ridiculously long and frilly nightgown.

The room she steps, or, more appropriately, is shoved into, momentarily paralyses her. It exactly resembles illustrations she has seen in history books, books from the Hogwarts library, books about Grindelwald’s reign of terror. It resembles an interrogation room.

The walls and floor are smooth dark stone, bare and utilitarian, the only furniture a single chair that stands, throne like, in the middle of the room and a small cabinet by it’s side. Chains coil like snakes around the whole thing, and under her gaze they clink menacingly; it reminds her of Harry’s description of his Wizengamot hearing.

The sound of the door being slammed shut jolts her from her thoughts, and when she whips round there are two men conversing with Vulture; one clutches a clipboard to his chest, looking anywhere but at her. As she watches, he takes out a folded handkerchief and dabs delicately at his glistening temples. The other has his back to her, but when he turns she barely represses a shudder.

It is not as if the man is outwardly repellant, far from it in fact; he is good looking in the same way Gilderoy Lockhart is, with sandy hair, even features and immaculate dark robes, but there is a twist to the smile he flashes at Vulture, a prickle of darkness clinging to the air around him, a cold, cruel glint to his gaze when it finally lands on her that makes her gut tighten in unease.

‘Good evening, my dear,’ he drawls, and she could hug this stranger for speaking English – but she doesn’t, of course. ‘I hope that Scrupus here wasn’t too impolite. I am _forever_ telling him to be nice to our guests.’ His lips stretch wide in what is obviously supposed to be a winning smile, but that instead reminds Hermione of a shark, his handsome mouth too full of gleaming, sharp teeth, his icy blue eyes predatory. Even his voice is unnerving, falsely genuine, and slippery with an accent she thinks is Germanic.

Shark’s smile is looking more and more fixed with ever second of her continued silence.

‘Take a seat, won’t you, sweetling?’ he prompts, a bite of impatience in his voice. Abruptly abandoning any pretense of charm, he barks something at Vulture that has the man sour-faced and sullenly muttering some excuse or other.

‘Please sit.’ It is very clearly an order, but one she does not follow, too busy staring at the chair with mingled horror and disgust.

‘Now!’ Reluctantly, Hermione complies, and lowers herself onto the loathsome chair; instantly the chains slither out and wrap round her wrists and ankles, firmly trapping her.

‘Good. Now, what is your name?’ He clucks his tongue when she does not answer. ‘You must know that there are two options you can choose from... One, we do this as painlessly as possible and you answer as truthfully as you can, or two, we make use of a delightful little potion called Veritaserum. The choice is yours.’

‘What if I’ve built up an immunity?’ She injects far more confidence than she feels into the sentence, half-predicting his answer.

‘Ah, so she speaks!’ he exclaims, handsome face delighted. ‘If you have such an immunity, then surely you know that there are other ways of making people speak, far, far less pleasant than Veritaserum… And all the more fun for me,’ he adds, glancing wickedly at the cabinet by the chair’s side. ‘Now, your name.’

‘Penelope Clearwater.’

His chuckle is a dark, mirthless sound that makes the shiny-faced little man in the corner pause in his frantic scribbling.

‘I said no lies,’ he says softly, and with a display of wandless magic that leaves her dry-mouthed, the cabinet door opens, revealing row upon row of menacing-looking instruments and clear glass vials, one of which snaps out of it’s leather clasps and into his hand. In a second he is upon her, forcing the vial to her mouth; she struggles, but he manages to slip the neck through her lips and tips it back.

_The room explodes into a million shards of glass, glittering and sharp in a white white place. _

_There is no roof, no floor, only white stretching forever and broken crystal hung in the air. Then the scene shifts and she is perched on a wooden stool, warm parchment spread out on her desk. The format is familiar; a questionnaire, and she knows all the answers. A black quill materializes in her hand, the ink that flows from it deep midnight blue and thick. _

_Hermione Granger, she writes, a witch, a witch. An English witch, sixteen years of age. _

_The scenery shifts again and suddenly she is in Dumbledore’s office, standing in front of his desk while he peers at her with blue blue eyes. _

_‘There were two magical disruptions on a Muggle farm today,’ he tells her calmly. Hermione still stares at the blue blue blue. ‘The first was at 2.38 am and set off the Trace, the second at 6.13 pm helped us locate the exact source. You are that source, Miss Granger?’ _

_She frowns, puzzling over the question, but she already knows the answer and it spills easily from her lips. _

_‘No, Headmaster.’ Blue blue blue. ‘In the evening, an accident. My magic, an accident. I didn’t mean it, sir,’ she adds earnestly. ‘It hasn’t happened since I was little, sir, I’m sorry if I hurt anyone.’ _

_‘Then Miss Granger, what was the first incident?’ She doesn’t quite know, and Dumbledore sits there, eyes no longer blue but white white white. _

_Words splash like water over her skin, drenching her hair, getting in her eyes. Blue ink tattooed on her wrists like snakes, or maybe chains. _

_The scene shifts again, warm arms folded around her and her father’s breath tickles her ear when he reads aloud from the book, her favorite book. _

_‘And then the bad men chased them through a room full of clocks,’ he tells her, his voice warm and familiar and reassuring. ‘And the girl sent her pretty spells at the men, but then something happened. Do you remember what happens next, darling?’ _

_Her room is rosy and comfortable, lit only by her bedside lamp because it’s sleepy time soon, Mummy said so. _

_‘She stepped on something,’ she remembers, ‘and there’s loads of light. It has a name, I think.’ _

_The page is smooth under her fingertips where she traces the ink, warm against the parchment. _

_‘The name…’ she says slowly. ‘Time-turner!’ _

_She feels her father freeze. And then suddenly she is flung from his lap onto the white patterned carpet. But she never lands, only falls through levels and levels of multi-colored shards while fireworks go off in the background. _

_They make her think of the Weasley twins and a black bow perched on a toady head as they whizz, bang!, crackle, in a deafening symphony. _

_Time stands still, for a second, an eternity, and then the crystals spin and blur like bright leaves caught in wind. The scene shifts once more, and she is dead weight being dragged through dim corridors, bright spells dancing around her. A short, pudgy man grasps her by the wrist, except now there is no clipboard but instead a raised wand and a grim face. She is spun around, and then squeezed, pressed, forced through a tight tube that makes her ears pop, her head threaten to explode. She is Apparated away._

*

Vetusa Delage is an old woman, this is no secret; she has wrinkles and white hair, her eyesight isn’t all it once was, and neither is her strength. This does not mean she is any less terrifying when angry.

‘_What do you mean you gave yourself away_?’

‘Madame, you have to understand that this girl…’

Cornaille loosens his collar uncomfortably.

‘She will make all the difference in the war.’ To his credit, he does not quail under Vetusa’s glare.

‘And you are sure of this why?’

‘She testified to being a Time-traveller under Veritaserum,’ he says, avoiding her gaze. Vetusa harrumphs. ‘Did she say how far she travelled? For all we know she comes from tomorrow morning.’

'We are not sure,’ he mutters. ‘The _Ministère_ wardens reported an incredibly powerful signature, so we suspect – ’ he ignores Vetusa’s sound of disbelief ‘ – that she has travelled at least a few days, if not weeks… Enough, Madame, to have critical information on the upcoming battles.’

‘But was that truly enough to warrant you leaving your mission? You were told to keep providing inside information on the _Ministère_, not to go chasing after lost Time-travellers... No matter,’ she sighs. ‘What is done is done, and at least Grindelwald will not use her knowledge against us. Why, he won’t even know of existence! Maybe I am too hard on you, Meryle.’ Her laugh is cut short when she catches sight of his expression.

‘You obliviated the girl, I presume?’ The calmness of her tone is what worries Cornaille the most. He clears his throat, gathering his nerve.

‘Well, Madame… Now, look here, there wasn’t enough time to obliviate – ’

‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WASN’T ENOUGH TIME TO OBLIVIATE?!’

‘ – to obliviate the Head Auror, _and_ Glaive, _and_ get out of there without dying – ’

‘_Be quiet_,’ she hisses, and Cornaille’s mouth immediately snaps shut. There is silence, which stretches an eternity in his mind, and he can only think of what happened to the last poor sod that angered Madame Delage, and how long it took to clean up after, and…

She smiles.

‘I expect too much, Cornaille; I am sure you did the best you could under such pressing circumstances. I will have your word, however, that there will be no repeats.’ Her smile wavers for a second. ‘Now, bring me the girl.’

**Author's Note:**

> You can go read Candlelight if you so wish, although I wouldn't advise it...
> 
> *shudder*
> 
> In any case, thank you for reading!


End file.
